Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 44

The Cost of Trump’s Trade War (and a Better Alternative)

We are now in a trade war with the second-largest economy on Earth.On
Monday, China said it would...

THE DIVIDER-IN-CHIEFDonald Trump’s goal is, and has always been,...

THE DIVIDER-IN-CHIEF

Donald Trump’s goal is, and has always been, division and disunion. It’s how he keeps himself the center of attention, fuels his base and ensures that no matter what facts are revealed, his followers will stick by him.

But there’s another reason Trump aims to divide—and why he pours salt into the nation’s deepest wounds over ethnicity, immigration, race and gender.

He wants to distract attention from the biggest and most threatening divide of all: the widening imbalance of wealth and power between the vast majority, who have little or none, and a tiny minority at the top who are accumulating just about all.

“Divide and conquer” is one of the oldest strategies in the demagogic playbook: keep the public angry at each other so they don’t unite against those who are running off with the goods.

Over the last four decades, the median wage has barely budged. But the incomes of the richest 0.1 percent have soared by more than 300 percent and the incomes of the top 0.001 percent – the 2,300 richest Americans – they have soard by more than 600 percent.

This enormous imbalance is undermining American democracy.

Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern concluded a few years ago that “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” After analyzing 1,799 policy issues that came before Congress, they found that lawmakers only respond to the demands of wealthy individuals and moneyed business interests.

No secret here. In fact, Trump campaigned as a populist—exploiting the public’s justifiable sense that the game is rigged against them. But he hasn’t done anything to fix the system. To the contrary, his divide-and-conquer strategy as president has disguised his efforts to reward his wealthy donors and funnel more wealth and power to those at the top.

Trump’s tax cuts, his evisceration of labor laws, his filling his cabinet and sub-cabinet with corporate shills, his rollbacks of health, safety, environmental and financial regulations: all have made the super-rich far richer, at the expense of average Americans.

Meanwhile, he and his fellow Republicans continue to suppress votes. Senate Republicans have denounced Democratic proposals to increase turnout, even calling the idea of making election day a federal holiday “a power grab.” Of course, it’ s a power grab—for the people.

Trump and his enablers would rather opponents focus on the ethnic, racial and gender differences he uses to divide and conquer. Don’t fall for it. We must be united to take back our democracy.

Congress Should Be Ready to Arrest Attorney General Barr if He Defies Subpoena

On Sunday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee threatened to subpoena Attorney General...

5 Responses to Climate Change DeniersHave you ever found...

5 Responses to Climate Change Deniers

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone who denies climate change? Here are 5 responses to climate change deniers:

1) The science is undeniable. Scientists have concluded that the Earth’s temperature has been steadily climbing since the late 19th century, just when humans started emitting large amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere. And it’s intensifying. 18 of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.

And, no. Just because it snows doesn’t mean climate change isn’t occurring.

You can see the consequences of extreme weather all around us. Wildfires. hurricanes. droughts.

2) Tackling climate change is good for the economy. Clean energy creates more jobs than natural gas or coal, with3 times as many Americans already employed in clean energy as in fossil fuels. These jobs also tend to pay more. States like Californiathat have invested heavily in clean energy have grown their economies, while reducing carbon pollution.

3) Other countries are charging ahead with clean energy, leaving America in the coal dust. Germany plans to close its remaining coal plants by 2038. China is moving ahead with clean energy and has pledged to invest hundreds of billions more, far outpacing the United States. Even Saudi Arabia is now investing in renewable energy.

4) We can’t afford not to address climate change. The devastation brought on by climate change will cause the U.S. economy to shrink,  according to scientific estimates. The losses are projected to be more than double those of the Great Recession.

5) Oil companies have known for decades that carbon pollution threatens the planet, but have sought to block action addressing the crisis. They have poured billions into political donationsand misinformation campaigns to protect their profits and block clean air laws.

At this point, anyone who denies climate change is either willfully ignorant or complicit in protecting fossil fuel profits over the safety and security of our children and grandchildren.

Packing the Supreme Court

The
Supreme Court heard arguments today on the Trump
administration’s decision to alter the 2020...

The Case for Environmental Justice Climate change and widening...

The Case for Environmental Justice 

Climate change and widening inequality are not two separate issues. They’re intimately connected. And there’s at least one solution to both.

The people who are bearing the brunt of climate change here and around the world are the poor and working class who live in areas increasingly prone to flooding. 

Who rely on croplands susceptible to ever more frequent droughts. 

Who depend on outdated water and sewage systems, and older roadways and power grids that are falling apart under the strains of more severe weather. 

Who live in fragile structures particularly vulnerable to intensifying hurricanes and violent storms. 

Whose health is especially compromised by airborne contaminants, infections, and other diseases that are accompanying climate change.

So what do we do?

You often hear that reversing climate change will mean fewer jobs, especially for the poor and working class – the very people who are bearing the biggest burden from climate change.

But it’s not true. Clean energy – powered by wind, or solar cells, or water — is growing fast, even as the old fossil-fuel industries decline, and generate fewer jobs.  

More than 3 times as many people are already employed generating electricity from solar and wind than from coal, oil, and gas combined.  Wind turbine technician is our country’s fastest-growing occupation.  

This transition to renewables is inevitable, in part because of the so-called “beautiful math” of solar power:  Every time the world’s solar power doubles, the cost of panels falls 26%.  This has led to a 99% decline in the cost of solar modules since 1976, and an 80% decline since 2008 alone.  

Donald Trump and his republican enablers are afraid of clean energy because it puts power, literally and figuratively, back into the hands of people and communities.  

Their attacks on science and on health protections are just efforts to maintain billions of dollars in unjust profits and corporate giveaways for the barons of oil, gas, and coal, and to undermine the urgency and speed of a the transition already underway.

We must not let them.  Reversing both climate change and inequality can be a win-win proposition.

America Has Already Fired Trump!The question on everyone’s mind...

America Has Already Fired Trump!

The question on everyone’s mind is whether Trump will be impeached. In other words, will America fire Trump?

Well, I have news for you. America has already fired him.

When the public fires a president before election day – as it did with Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover– they don’t send him a letter telling him he’s fired. They just make him irrelevant. Politics happens around him, despite him. He’s not literally gone, but he might as well be.

It’s happened to Trump. House Democrats are moving against him. Senate Republicans are quietly subverting him. The courts are pushing back. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told him to end the shutdown.

The Federal Reserve is running economic policy. Top-level civil servants are managing the day-to-day work of the agencies. States are taking up the slack: California, for example, is now running environmental policy.

Departments and agencies are being run by lobbyists and insiders busily carving out loopholes, cutting taxes, and slashing regulations on behalf of the wealthy and big corporations.

Isolated in the White House, distrustful of aides, at odds with intelligence agencies, distant from his Cabinet heads, Trump has no system to make or implement decisions.

His tweets don’t create headlines as before. His rallies are ignored. His lies have become old hat.

Even America’s adversaries just humor him. Kim Jong Unand Xi Jinping give him tidbits to share with the American public, and then do whatever they want.

Action and excitement have shifted elsewhere – to Democratic challengers, even to a 29-year-old freshman congresswoman too young to run for president.

Energy is now coming from the grassroots – from people all over the country who are determined to reclaim our democracy and create an economy that works for all.

According to polls, most Americans want Medicare-for-All and higher taxes on the wealthy. And they don’t want a wall along the southern border.  

Now, don’t get me wrong. Trump is still dangerous, like an old land mine buried in the mud. He could start a nuclear war. And his court picks are a terrifying legacy.

But in an important sense, he’s already gone. 

Mr. President: In the words you yourself have often used, “You’re fired.”

Most Devastating of All: Mueller’s Indictment of Trump’s Character

Democrats in Congress and talking heads on television will be consumed in the coming weeks by...

The 12 Biggest Myths about Raising Taxes on the RichSome...

The 12 Biggest Myths about Raising Taxes on the Rich

Some politicians are calling for higher taxes on the rich. Naturally, these proposals have unleashed a torrent of opposition – mostly from…the rich. Here are the 12 biggest myths they’re propounding: 

Myth 1: A top marginal tax rate applies to all of a rich person’s total income or wealth.

Wrong. It would only apply to dollars in excess of a certain level. The 70 percent income tax rate proposed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would apply only to dollars in excess of 10 million dollars a year. The 2 percent wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren would apply only to wealth in excess of 50 million dollars.

Myth 2 : Raising taxes on the rich is a far-left idea.

Baloney. 70 percent of Americans – including 54 percent of Republicans – support raising taxes on families making more than 10 million dollars a year.  And expecting the rich to pay their fair share is a traditional American idea. From 1930 to 1980, the average top marginal income tax rate was  78 percent. From 1951 to 1963 it exceeded 90 percent – again, only on dollars in excess of a very high threshold. Even considering all deductions and tax credits, the very rich paid over half of their top incomes in taxes.  

Myth 3: A wealth tax is unconstitutional.

Rubbish. Most locales already impose an annual wealth tax on the value of peoples’ homes – the main source of household wealth for most people. It’s called the property tax. The rich hold most of their wealth in stocks and bonds, so why should these forms of wealth escape taxation?  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution gives “Congress [the] power to lay and collect taxes.”

Myth 4: When taxes on the rich are cut, they invest more and everyone benefits, when taxes on the rich are increased, economic growth slows.

Utter baloney. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke. Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan all cut taxes on the rich, and nothing trickled down. There’s no evidence that higher taxes on the rich slows economic growth. To the contrary, when the top marginal tax rate has been high – between 71 to 92 percent – growth has averaged 4 percent a year. But when top rate has been low – between 28 and 39 percent – growth has averaged only 2.1 percent.

Myth 5: When you cut taxes on corporations, they invest more, and create more jobs.

Wrong again. After Trump and the Republicans lowered the corporate tax rate in 2018, America’s largest corporations cut more jobs than they created. They used their tax savings largely to increase their stock prices by buying back their own shares of stock – enriching executives and wealthy investors but providing no real benefit to the economy.  

Myth 6: The rich already pay more than their fair share in taxes.

This is misleading, because it focuses only on income taxes – leaving out the large and growing tax burden on lower-income Americans; payroll taxes, state and local sales taxes, and property taxes take bigger bites out of the pay of lower-income families than higher-income.

Myth 7: The rich shouldn’t be taxed more because they already pay capital gains taxes.

Misleading. Rich families avoid paying capital gains taxes by passing their wealth on to their heirs. In fact, the largest share of big estates transferred from generation to generation are unrealized capital gains that have never been taxed.

Myth 8: The estate tax is a death tax that hits millions of Americans.

Baloney. The current estate tax, which only applies to assets in excess of 11 million dollars, or 22 million dollars for couples, affects fewer than 2,000 families.

Myth 9: If taxes are raised on the wealthy, they’ll find ways to evade them. So very little money is going to be raised.

More rubbish. For example, a 2 percent wealth tax, as proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, would raise around 2.75 trillion dollars over the next decade with very little tax evasion, according to research. A 70 percent tax on incomes over 10 million would raise close to 720 billion dollars over 10 years.

Myth 10: The only reason to raise taxes on the wealthy is to collect revenue.

No. Although these proposals would generate lots of revenue – and help us reduce the national debt while investing in schools, roads, and all the things we need – another major purpose is to reduce inequality, and thereby safeguard democracy against oligarchy.

Myth 11: It’s unfair to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Actually, it’s unfair not to raise taxes on the rich.  For the last 40 years, most Americans have seen no growth in their incomes at all, while the incomes of a minority at the top have skyrocketed. We’re rapidly heading toward a society dominated by a handful of super-rich, many of whom have never worked a day in their lives. More than 60 percent of wealth in America is now inherited.

Myth 12: They earned it. It’s their money.

Hogwash. It’s their country, too. They couldn’t maintain their fortunes without what America provides – national defense, police, laws, courts, political stability, and the Constitution. They couldn’t have got where they are without other things America provides – education, infrastructure, and a nation that respects private property. And to argue it’s “their money” also ignores a lot of other ways America has bestowed advantages on the rich – everything from bailing out Wall Street bankers when they get into trouble, to subsidizing the research of Big Pharma.

So the next time you hear one of these myths, know the truth.

How McConnell is Killing the Senate

Congress has recessed for two weeks without passing a desperately-needed disaster relief bill. Why...